Architecture and the City Festival San Francisco

Architecture and the City Festival San Francisco, Events, Tours, Dates, Lectures, Projects, News

Architecture and the City Festival San Francisco

Center for Architecture + Design – A+C Festival 2012

Aug 31, 2012

2012 Architecture and the City Festival

2012 Architecture and the City Festival San Francisco

A+C Festival San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (August 30, 2012) – The American Institute of Architects, San Francisco chapter (AIA San Francisco) and the Center for Architecture + Design announce the ninth annual Architecture and the City festival, the nation’s largest architectural festival of its kind. Taking place in San Francisco every September, the month-long celebration features behind the scenes and walking tours, films, exhibitions, lectures and more, providing opportunities for participants to engage with the local architecture community and experience design in a myriad of ways throughout the city. Presented in collaboration with nearly 100 organizations, this year’s festival features over 40 events and is sure to include something inspiring for everyone.
While pop-up stores and rotating storefront galleries may be due, in part, to the economic times, the adaptive reuse of older buildings and public spaces has redefined the way we live and work.The 2012 festival theme, Design: It’s About Time, aims to inspire attendees to consider both the notion of permanence and the enduring power of design in the built environment, and to explore the layers of history that have shaped San Francisco.

San Francisco 2012 Architecture and the City Festival – Program Preview

San Francisco 2012 Architecture and the City Festival – Opening Night Party

This evening, the Opening Night Party kicks off the Architecture and the City festival at the San Francisco Design Center, with a salute to the many individuals, organizations, cultural institutions and nonprofits that help make the month possible. This special evening also celebrates the work of the 2012/13 Small Firms, Great Projects participants with an exhibition highlighting the exceptional work of our Bay Area firms.

San Francisco 2012 Architecture and the City Festival – San Francisco Living : Home Tours

This year marks the tenth anniversary of our San Francisco Living: Home Tours weekend (September 15+16). This popular weekend showcases modernism at its finest and features a wide variety of architectural styles and neighborhoods, all from the architect’s point of view. Tour-goers have the exclusive opportunity to see distinctive San Francisco residences, meet design teams and discover the innovative design solutions inherent in San Francisco living.
Participating architects: Blue Truck Studio | David Baker + Partners Architects | Fougeron Architecture | Gary Gee Architects | Huang Iboshi Architecture and John Maniscalco Architecture | John Lum Architecture | SFOSL | Three Legged Pig Design | YamaMar Design | Zack | de Vito Architecture and Construction

San Francisco 2012 Architecture and the City Festival – Behind the Scenes Tours

Throughout the month, participants can see San Francisco’s architectural landscape from a new perspective with our architect-led behind the scenes tours. Tours include:

• Visits to transformative adaptive reuse projects, including Southern Pacific Brewing– a cavernous former machinery warehouse converted into a restaurant, bar and brewery – and Sightglass café and production coffee roaster (both with Boor Bridges Architecture); as well as Heath Ceramics’ Mission-based factory and showroom (once a linen laundry facility), with owners Catherine Bailey and Robin Petravic.
• An AIA Member tour of the new Bayview public library, designed by THA Architecture with Karin Payson Architecture + Design, which will replace the existing building with a new 9,000 sq. ft. structure with sustainable features like vegetated roofs and an innovative natural ventilation system.
• A tour of the restoration project at Angel Island’s historic Immigration Station, with Architectural Resources Group and Angel Island State Park.
• An AIA Member hard hat tour through the street level retail concept of Market Square, the 11 story, 1937 Art Deco building at 9th and Market poised to become a new hub of technology and creativity.
• A boat cruise along San Francisco’s waterfront to both the Golden Gate and Bay bridges, with Donald MacDonald Architects, Bart Ney and Heller Manus Architects, who will use this ideal backdrop to describe the process of designing a signature bridge.
• An exploration of the early history, top-to-bottom reconstruction and current uses of the Yellow Building, with architect Loring Sagan (Sagan Piechota Architecture).
• A visit to the Buck Institute, set on a spectacular hilltop in Novato and designed by Perkins+Will in keeping with the Institute’s original master plan, by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei.
• A walk through and discussion of the 5M project, a creative development designed to catalyze the innovative ideas that build our economy in the short and long-term, with designer Laura Crescimano.

San Francisco 2012 Architecture and the City Festival – Walking Tours

Rediscover San Francisco’s unique neighborhoods with walking tours that explore the mix of layered history and contemporary design in our city. Tours include visits to:

• Lands End Lookout Visitor Center, with EHDD Architecture. Overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the ruins of Sutro Baths, the building stands along the path of some of the city’s most scenic walking trails and highlights the cultural and natural history of the surrounding area.
• The International Orange exhibition at Fort Point, with the For-Site Foundation, exemplifies the crucial role that artists can play in revitalizing historic places using the Golden Gate Bridge for design inspiration.
• The Tenderloin, with Lisa Gelfand of Gelfand Partners, with firsthand views of affordable single room occupancy hotels and the recently completed adaptive re-use of the historic Central YMCA.
• Urban agriculture projects in the Tenderloin with SPUR, including Graze the Roof at Glide Memorial Church, and the Tenderloin People’s Garden.
• Diamond Heights, which occupies a commanding position on Red Rock and Gold Mine hills and includes some of the city’s best modern residential architecture (tour led by Docomomo/Noca).

San Francisco 2012 Architecture and the City Festival – Exhibition

The featured 2012 exhibition, Greetings From San Francisco: Postcards from the City’s Past, is a series of vintage postcards collected by Peter Espe, a senior project manager at HOK. Espe’s collection of roughly 1,200 San Francisco images offers a glimpse of the city from before the 1906 earthquake to 1925. The collection includes detailed views of the city’s distinct architecture, from its growing neighborhoods to landmark buildings, and writings that reflect the popularity of the postcard at the time.
Don’t miss the accompanying exhibition lecture, where Espe will be joined in discussing the collecting process and history behind these striking images with Jonathan Lammers (architectural historian, Page & Turnbull), who will give an architectural and sociopolitical context to this period (roughly 1890-1929), and AIASF president Carolyn Kiernat (Page & Turnbull), who will moderate the discussion.

San Francisco 2012 Architecture and the City Festival – Films

Celebrate Architecture and the City month with our popular film series that spotlights the built environment and the architectural profession. Films are shown every Wednesday at 5:30 pm during the festival at the San Francisco Public Library. Films include:

• How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?, which traces the rise of one of the world’s premier architects, Norman Foster, and his unending quest to improve the quality of life through design.
• HU Enigma, a material metaphor of the Brazilian public sphere and its political maze, takes viewers into a symmetrically divided building, with an important public hospital on one side and a bewildering ruin on the other.
• Master Plan, a portrayal of the various layers of “managed” housing in America, from individual homes to prisons, mixing accounts of the planners’ rationales for their designs with residents’ testimonies concerning the quality of life within these structures.
• My Playground an exploration of the way Parkour and Freerunning are changing the perception of urban space and how these spaces and buildings are changing them.

San Francisco 2012 Architecture and the City Festival – Lectures

Festival lectures convene leading minds on issues in architecture, design and urban planning. From design trends to addressing spatial challenges in the Bay Area, experts share their ideas, creativity and visions for our local built environment. Lectures include:

• Design: It’s About Time, a panel discussion organized by the Center for Architecture + Design, that explores our evolving landscape and how design shapes the public realm today.
• A lunchtime panel discussion on Design in the Media, moderated by Kenneth Caldwell and featuring Kitty Morgan (editor-in-chief, Sunset magazine), Ariel Schwartz (senior editor, Fast Company’s Co.Exist), and Jon Steinberg (editor-in-chief, San Francisco magazine).
• GOOD Design, a forum that pairs designers with local civic leaders to identify innovative solutions to some of our everyday design problems.
• Cathleen McGuigan, editor-in-chief of Architectural Record, in conversation with John King, the Chronicle’s design critic.
• An informative session on how to research the history of a building with SF Heritage and an exciting look at the home of the future presented in collaboration with SPUR.

Stay tuned for more details about the Architecture and the City festival at www.aiasf.org/archandcity and follow the festival on Twitter at @archandcity and Facebook.

Architecture and the City Festival 2012 information from AIA San Francisco

Architecture and the City Festival 2011

Date: 1 – 30 Sep 2011

2011 Architecture and the City Festival

e-architect is an official partner of Architecture and the City.

The American Institute of Architects, San Francisco chapter (AIA San Francisco) and Center for Architecture + Design present the eighth annual Architecture and the City festival, the nation’s largest architectural festival showcasing tours, films, exhibitions, lectures, family programs and more. Taking place every September 1-30, the month-long celebration offers individuals an unparalleled opportunity to engage with the local architectural community, explore the crossroads of planning and contemporary culture, and experience design in a myraid of ways throughout the city.

This year’s program, centered around the theme Architecture of Consequence, will continue to demonstrate the positive impact architects and designers make on our communities, enhancing sustainability, promoting creativity and increasing our collective quality of life. An extension of Architecture of Consequence – Dutch Designs on the Future, orginally conceived by the Netherlands Architecture Institute in 2009, the Architecture of Consequence: San Francisco exhibition introduces new work by four Bay Area firms and provides the conceptual focal point of the 2011 festival. A series of collaborative discussions and dynamic workshops exploring topics from holistic engagement strategies, to community planning processes, flexible urbanism, alternative energy cultivation and interdisciplinary design will also be presented in conjunction with the show.

With the inclusion of over forty programs and special events, Architecture and the City will provide many opportunities to view and rediscover the city from a different perspective. The San Francisco Living: Home Tours weekend, which returns September 17-18, gives participants an exclusive look into some of the city’s latest residential projects from the inside out. Take in films that spotlight the built environment, the architectural profession and cutting-edge design or attend lectures by renowned architects and designers. Behind the scenes tours, including sailing tours along San Francisco’s changing waterfront and food and design tours of some of the city’s hottest restaurants will also be a part of the program. AIA San Francisco will be announcing the winners of our Constructed Realities Design Awards at a special celebration party at Tres on September 6 as well as screening the winning films of our short film competition – Architecture Is on September 28.

The Architecture and the City festival has been engaging members of the public and design enthusiasts, as well as architects and designers, with a deeper appreciation for San Francisco’s rich architectural and design community since 2003. Presented in collaboration with nearly 100 different organizations who contribute to our city’s creative vitality, this year’s Architecture and the City is sure to include something inspiring for everyone.

For more information on the full line-up, visit: www.aiasf.org/archandcity.

OPENING PARTY
Architecture and the City Opening Night Party!
A benefit for the Center for Architecture and Design
August 26, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
San Francisco Design Center, 101 Henry Adams, San Francisco
Swing the night away at the San Francisco Design Center as AIA San Francisco and the Center for Architecture + Design celebrate the opening of this year’s festival. Throughout the evening participants can preview some of the 2011 Architecture and the City festival programs and catch a glimpse of the homes to be showcased during the 2011 San Francisco Living: Home Tours weekend.

BEHIND THE SCENES TOURS
Immerse yourself in an array of San Francisco’s hidden gems – everything from historic buildings and emerging neighborhoods to glimpses of the city beneath the city.
City on the Edge: A Sail Along San Francisco’s Changing Waterfront (2 LUs)
September 2, 4:00 – 6:30 pm
Over the last thirty years, as the City’s downtown grew towards the water’s edge, new uses have established themselves in previously industrial areas along the Embarcadero. Today, the Port of San Francisco oversees a myriad of maritime, commercial and public activities. Join Dan Hodapp, Senior Waterfront Planner of the Port of San Francisco, and Bonnie Fisher, principal of Roma Design Group, to see how San Francisco’s historic northern waterfront is being transformed into a series of connected public places and public spaces. Following a presentation at the Port of San Francisco, participants will board the Ruby and sail along the waterfront to further understand the evolution of our City’s shore.
Other Behind the Scenes Tours include:
• Building Community: Partnerships in Public Design
• EcoCenter: Green Buildings Embodying Environmental Justice Inside and Out
• Behind the Scenes at the Marine Mammal Center
• (Re)discover the New Bay Bridge
• Pier 24: The Art of Transformation

FOOD TOURS
Celebrate San Francisco’s diverse design talent and culinary richness as we explore the intersection of design, craft and the local food movement.
Craft top to Bottom: Art, Building and Food (2 LUs)
September 10, 2:00 – 5:00 pm
This field-trip style event examines the SOMA-based restaurant Bar Agricole, the result of a unique artist-designer-client relationship and winner of the coveted James Beard Award for Interiors. The tour begins at the Mission district studio of Nikolas Weinstein, where he will describe the technical challenges of designing the seemingly weightless glass sculpture that floats above restaurant diners. Next stop is the restaurant, where architect Joshua Aidlin will discuss how the design took inspiration from the sustainable agricultural roots of the restaurant’s menu. Mark Rogero will then discuss the vast potential of concrete and the many forms explored in the restaurant, from poured in place and precast to the complexities of sensual ductal concrete. Lastly, Thaddeus Vogler, owner of Bar Agricole will speak about the artisanal food and drink menu, his intentions behind the restaurant’s concept of farm to table, and how the inclusion of local artists and craftspeople has enhanced the sense of place.
Other Food and Design in the City Tours include:
• Local: Mission Eatery – Promoting Community Through Food
• Raw + Refined
• Assembling a Culinary Heritage

WALKING TOURS
On these weekly tours, use all your senses to explore San Francisco’s pedestrian streets – as well as their evolution and tradition – as only a pedestrian can.
Then and Now – Pier 70 (1 HSW)
September 9, 3:00 – 4:30 pm
Join us for an intimate look at San Francisco’s industrial past as we explore Pier 70. This tour will look at the site’s history as a shipyard, its importance in the development of steel shipbuilding in the United States, as well as its role in two World Wars. Preservation and future reuse of what one authority called “one of the most intact 19th century industrial complexes west of the Mississippi River” will also be discussed.
Other Walking Tours include:
• Dogpatch Neighborhood Walk
• Redefining SOMA
• Acoustic Wayfinding for the Blind

FILM SERIES
Free, Wednesdays at 5:30 pm at the San Francisco Public Library
This year’s film series has been graciously curated by Chris Gee and Lee Schneider and is generously supported by the San Francisco Public Library and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, The American Architectural Foundation, CNA Insurance Companies and Victor O. Schinnerer & Company.
Design for Good: Shelter (2011) and Citizen Architect (2010)
September 7, 5:30 pm
The evening will begin with an informal conversation between the filmmakers Lee Schneider and Richard Neil of Shelter and John Peterson, Founder and Executive Director of Public Architecture. Following, the work-in-progress edit of Shelter will be screened. Focusing on reconstruction in Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake, it’s an inspiring look at how a world community of architects and designers join relief workers to create design solutions in the context of community building. The night concludes with the screening of Citizen Architect. Revealing the philosophy and heart behind Auburn University’s Rural Studio, the documentary is guided by never-before-seen interviews with the late architect Samuel Mockbee and perspectives from other architects and designers. Their dialogue infuses the film with a larger discussion of architecture’s role in issues of poverty, class, race, education, social change and citizenship.
Other Films include:
• Place/Nonplace: Malls R Us (2010)
• Revolutionary Wake: Unfinished Spaces (2011)
• Rem Koolhaas: A Kind of Architect (2008)
• Architecture Is…Best of Shorts Awards

Architecture Is…A Short Film Competition
The Center for Architecture + Design invites you to enter Architecture Is… our first short film competition. Young or old, architect or accountant, architecture means something different to each of us, and we want to hear what it means to you! Is it the beams and columns that hold up your home? Is it the way a skyscraper makes you feel like an ant in the city? Or is it how the built environment makes you move through space? Share your thoughts with us by submitting your three minute film to our YouTube channel! Deadline for entries is September 8.

LECTURES
“Grand Central of the West”: The Transbay Transit Center (2 LUs)
September 22, 6:00 pm
Led by Fred Clarke of Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects, this evening’s panel will discuss the visionary Transbay Transit Center project and its potential to reshape both downtown San Francisco and the Bay Area’s regional transportation system as a whole. The $4.2 billion project will replace the current Transbay Terminal at First and Mission streets in San Francisco with a modern regional transit hub connecting eight Bay Area counties and the State of California through 11 transit systems. The Transbay Transit Center will also create a neighborhood with new shops, homes, offices and parks, including a 5.4 acre public park on the roof of the bus and rail station.
Other Lectures and Workshops include:
• Casey Caplowe
• Fabrics in the City: Printing with En Route Studio
• The Bay Area’s Modern Landscape Legacy
• The Architects’ Forum
• ThinkBike SF Closing Event
• Art About Place
• Beyond Equisetum: How to Ressist your Architect’s Desire to Control Nature
• CLOSING NIGHT EVENT + PARTY: GOOD Design Bay Area

EXHIBITIONS
Architecture of Consequence: San Francisco
August 31 – October 21
Opening Reception August 31, 6:00 pm
AIA San Francisco/Center for Architecture + Design Gallery
130 Sutter Street, Suite 600, San Francisco
Join AIA San Francisco and the Center for Architecture + Design in welcoming Ole Bouman, Director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, for opening remarks and a provocative exploration of the changing role of architects and architecture in contemporary society.
At the dawn of the 21st century, the human race faces a number of colossal challenges. The economic crisis, food and energy shortages, decreased leisure time and weakened social cohesion impact our lives in new and astonishing ways. While these challenges are daunting, they represent significant opportunity for new design solutions and value propositions. Broadening the notion of value to include long-term social benefits creates new space, both mentally and physically, for fresh ideas and new perspectives.
In an effort to advance critical dialogue with the international architectural community, we are delighted to announce a unique collaboration with the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI). In 2009, the NAI presented the Architecture of Consequence – Dutch Designs on the Future exhibition. Over the past two years it has been presented in multiple locations around the world. This latest incarnation, in San Francisco, is the first to add content to the exhibition, with the inclusion of new work by four Bay Area architecture firms. In doing so we hope to advance this innovative agenda and reveal how architects can practice in new ways that reinvigorate the field and reposition architects at the vanguard of social change. From modest interventions to utopian visions, the firms participating in this ground-breaking exhibition express an admirable confidence in our shared future. The result is a unique portfolio of progressive design strategies and demonstrable evidence that architects hold the creative vision needed to reshape our future.
Other Exhibitions include:
• Teaching Architecture: 3 Positions (Made in Switzerland)
• Reclaim Market Street!
• Constructed Realities
• Music for a City, Music for the World: 100 Years with the San Francisco Symphony
• SEAT
• Outdoor Exploratorium at Fort Mason
• Museum of Craft and Design

FAMILY PROGRAMS
Adventures in Architecture at the Contemporary Jewish Museum
September 18, 11:00 am – 3:00 pm
Come and discover new ways of experiencing your relationship with the city and built environment through an interactive tour of the CJM’s redesigned historical building. Interactive tours will include scavenger hunts, creative movement exercises, material investigations, and design challenges with recycled materials! Learn how art and architecture can impact your everyday life, and see how you can bring your very own building “to life!”

SPECIAL EVENTS
Mayor’s Forum: What is Your Vision for San Francisco’s Built Environment?
August 29, 5:30 – 7:30 pm
Should the city be denser? Is the city building enough affordable housing? How can the city balance desires for preservation with changing urban needs? Join San Francisco Chronicle Urban Design Critic John King and leading candidates for Mayor of San Francisco in a roundtable discussion of their views of the City’s design future.
Other Special Events include:
• Constructed Realities Awards Celebration
• Sunday Streets
• Engaging Our Grounds – International Green Schoolyards Conference

Architecture and the City Festival

Date: 1 – 30 Sep 2010

2010 Architecture and the City Festival

e-architect is an official partner of Architecture and the City.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (August 19, 2010) – The American Institute of Architects, San Francisco chapter (AIA San Francisco) and Center for Architecture + Design announce the seventh annual Architecture and the City festival, which takes place September 1-30, 2010.

As the nation’s largest architectural festival showcasing tours, films, exhibitions, lectures, family programs and more, Architecture and the City reaches more than 20,000 people and provides an opportunity for individuals, design practices, companies, cultural institutions and the general public to celebrate San Francisco’s unique built environment and their contribution towards it.

The 2010 festival theme Investigating Urban Metabolisms takes an in-depth look at hidden and emergent systems that generate form, movement, growth and entropy in the city. According to festival curator, Erin Cullerton, programs will explore how the city is organized via information systems, ecological systems, building systems, transportation systems, surveillance systems, life cycle systems, natural systems, and beyond. Additionally, programming will explore the way architects or projects thoughtfully impact our communities and reflect issues of sustainability.

Popular programs include the San Francisco Living: Home Tours weekend, which returns September 11-12, 2010, giving participants the unique opportunity to see some of the city’s latest residential projects from the inside out, meet design teams, explore housing trends, and discover design solutions that inspire unique San Francisco living. The central exhibition of the festival, Water for a Sustainable City: Hetch Hetchy and San Francisco, will explore the story of San Francisco’s water system through the lens of architecture and design. Additionally, architectural programming for the whole family, tours of evolving San Francisco neighborhoods, behind the scenes tours and food tours will also be a part of the program.

The Architecture and the City festival has been engaging members of the public and design enthusiasts, as well as architects and designers, with a deeper appreciation for San Francisco’s rich architectural and design community since 2003. In honor of the festival, Mayor Gavin Newsom has officially proclaimed September “Architecture and the City” month.

For more information, visit: www.aiasf.org/archandcity

AIA SAN FRANCISCO
Serving the Bay Area for more than a century, the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco Chapter (AIA San Francisco) is one of the largest of the AIA’s 300 chapters. Headquartered in the historic Hallidie Building—one of the world’s first glass-curtain-wall-buildings, designed by Willis Polk and completed in 1917—AIA San Francisco is the Bay Area’s premier destination for architecture and design. Representing more than 2,300 members in San Francisco and Marin County, our mission is to improve the quality of life in the Bay Area by promoting architecture and design. We further this goal through community involvement, education, advocacy, public outreach, member service, and professional excellence.

CENTER FOR ARCHITECTURE + DESIGN
As one of the first centers of its kind on the West Coast, the Center for Architecture + Design enhances public appreciation for architecture and design both locally and internationally through exhibitions, lectures, tours, film series and other programs that aim to reveal the richness of the design arts. Founded by the American Institute of Architects, San Francisco chapter in 2005, the Center for Architecture + Design celebrates the larger diverse design community and is a collaborative environment where design organizations and affiliates share not only space, but ideas.

ARCHITECTURE AND THE CITY FESTIVAL
Celebrating San Francisco’s unique built environment and design community, Architecture and the City is the first festival of its kind in the Bay Area to feature architectural tours, film screenings, exhibitions, design lectures and more. Created in 2003, Architecture and the City has now grown into the nation’s largest architecture festival, showcasing San Francisco’s diverse architectural talent and presenting a forum to promote new ideas for innovative design and development in the city. Whether festival participants are looking to become involved with the local architecture and design community or simply want to learn more about the city in which they live, Architecture and the City offers an unparalleled opportunity to experience San Francisco.